Shield 2 - Update 1

Well, I have the day off today so I thought I would put it to good use.  I borrowed the circular saw from work and, with the two sheets of plywood clamped together, began to make some rough cuts to get the shape started.  Obviously, only so much I could accomplish with that so then I broke out the Dremel to do some finer work.  The shape is still very rough so I've got some sanding ahead of me to refine everything - especially all the curves.

With the shape set I put down a solid layer of wood glue and got it clamped up for the afternoon.  Sadly, didn't have as many clamps as I needed so I've got some bag clips on there to help keep it together... Note to self, buy more clamps!  Also a weight and a growler (full of water) set in the middle just to keep the pressure all over. Glue claims it'll be dry in 30min but I'm thinking i'll give it a couple hours and then start the sanding!

Next project, next day, next shield...

That's right!  Finished my first shield Tuesday night and it was so much fun I thought I would make another!  Got the design drawn up yesterday, photo attached.  Using a more classic kite shield like design for this one - it'll be roughly 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide at it's tallest/widest points.  For the metal bits I am going to stick with the compass rose design like I used on my previous shield but I'm contemplating trying to "distress" half of each point using the Dremel or some sand paper to give it a little more dimension. 

I think I am going to stick with the same general construction technique I used on the previous shield.  2 layers of plywood, stain and clear coat.  Then, some leather on the back which will wrap around to the front and be tacked down into place.  The compass rose I'll cut out of sheet metal and also tack into place.

I'm a little concerned about cutting out the curvey bits from the plywood to set the initial shape.  I don't have a jigsaw so I think I'll cut as close as I can in straight lines with the circular saw and then use a combination of the Dremel and aggressive sanding to get the shape smoothed out.

This time, I'll do a better job of documenting the construction throughout the process and try to update regularly... So stay tuned!

Shield!

So, it has been a very long time (over two years apparently) since I updated this blog and that I certainly regret... Mostly because there has been a lot of awesome projects between then and now!  The latest can be seen here; my medieval inspired shield!  I say medieval inspired because I can't find any record of anyone ever using octagonal shields back in the middle ages; however, since it was my first attempt at anything like this I decided to use a design that was mostly straight lines and just having a rectangle seemed boring. The design came to me about a week ago in the middle of the night and kept me awake until 4am which was unfortunate...  However, I think the end result is worth it.  This past week has been a flurry of activity (and multiple trips to the hardware store) as I've put it all together. 

As you can see, I began with 2 layers of quarter inch plywood which I cut into shape and then glued together.  Once this set up I did 3 layers of stain and 3 layers of varnish to help keep it protected.  While all of these layers were drying, I began to cut my pieces out of a thin piece of sheet steel.

Because my plywood base wasn't perfectly symmetrical I had to keep the entire project and all of the pieces oriented throughout the assembly to ensure that everything would fit correctly at the end.  To this end, I attached the center compass rose piece first using a rivet in the very center of the shield and then worked my way around in a circle laying out each of the smaller pieces of metal.

Once all of my varnish had dried I attached a 1/8inch thick piece of leather to the back of the shield using some common super glue.  Sadly, it turns out that super glue doesn't stick super well to the combination of leather and varnished wood; lesson learned.  But thankfully I already had 2 other plans for ensuring that this piece of leather stayed in place.

The first was actually a wonderfully happy "two birds with one stone" scenario with attaching the handle and forearm strap. Both of these are made from 1/4" thick by 1" wide piece of leather that I had around the house - originally I was going to make a belt from it. Both of these are riveted on place through the entire shield.  I did my best, with the metal spokes laid out, to hide these rivets completely from view.  My measurements weren't perfect though so about 1/4 of one of the rivets is sticking out in one place... Overall, for my first try though I think it worked pretty well!  I'm hoping that these rivets hold into the future and used some washers to help ensure that the rivets got a good hold of the leather strap but only time will tell.

Since I discovered that super glue wouldn't work so well for attaching the metal bits to the wood I went to plan b. I used some little 3/8" brass nails to secure the metal the whole way around.  Originally I had hoped to use the glue and the nails but no such luck.  Again, I am hoping that as time goes on these little nails will be sufficient to hold everything together.  To help, however, after attaching all the metal pieces I put down another 3 layers of varnish.  I know it seems excessive but varnish is kind of like glue, right?

Finally, with everything else in place it was time to finish the edges.  I left an extra inch of material on the leather that I used to line the back and wrapped it around the side to the front of the shield.  I found some pewter finish furniture tacks on Amazon which worked perfectly for doing a line around the perimeter of the shield, holding the leather in place + providing a nice touch of decoration.  I did it all freehand and you can see in the pictures that it is far from perfect.  While that bothers me to some degree, at the same time I kind of like the "hand finished" feel.  Maybe I'm just saying that to make myself feel better about the imperfections....

Anyway - I don't know why it won't let me re-order the photos below to be in the order of operations but I am glad to get back to this blog and start adding some new content!  I think the end result (last couple of photos) is pretty great! It goes well with my sword and some of the chainmaille I made; please excuse the goofy grin on my face though, I had been awake since 5:30 am and it was sometime after midnight last night when I finally finished... Let me know what you think!

Busy Busy...

Holy cow, how is it Tuesday again already!!!  I know its been a little while since my last post but I've certainly been busy with various projects.  Problem is, I'm in the middle of a half dozen things so I don't have a full post to write about anything!  So, here are a few of the things I'm in the middle of...

1) Thanks to Radioshack's brilliant (and sad) going out of business sale I scooped up the Make:it Robotics Starter Kit as well as a handful of sensors and other add-on's for the arduino board - plus 2 extra Arduino boards.  The first of the two projects in the kit is a line following robot.  I put it all together but am having some trouble with the line following part...  Once I get that all figured out, it will certainly get its own post.

2) The Table.  Progress on this has slowed thanks to the massive recent coldsnap in DC so I am reluctant to do too much sanding since I can't get the windows open.  I have most of the side pieces done but the top is going to be a big deal so I'm saving that.

3) I've been toying with a much larger electronics project for a while and am working on gathering aka scavenging the parts to make a prototype.  I'm hopeful that this one will actually be something some day so I'll keep the details to a minimum until I've got a functional prototype.  Current parts I have scavenged: a broken emergency light fixture and a DC motor...  Let your imaginations run wild!

Phew, okay.  So in the meantime while all of those sort of work their way through the pipeline I thought I would include a few lines about myself here for anyone who might be interested.

Obviously, working on projects such as these are my passion but in my real life I am the manager of a movie theatre here in the DC metro area.  Actually, its the only thing I've ever done or really know how to do in the money making field... I began working at a movie theatre in my home town when I was 16 and have been at it ever since.  

I went to college and got a degree in History and after graduating decided to move to DC where I had some friends thinking to myself "oh, what better place to do history stuff than DC where the smithsonian is!".  Ha, I was so young and foolish...  It quickly became apparent that to actually work in history you need an advanced degree of some sort so, as I was fast running through what little money I had saved up and didn't really want to move back home with my parents, I thought "what else do I know how to do?  I could work at a movie theatre!" and the rest, as they say, is history.

I do love my job, though, because it gives me a lot of opportunities to work on a variety of projects and really expand my own knowledge in a lot of ways.  While I am technically the manager I think it would be a fairer explanation of my job to call myself "head administrator, lead handyman & projectionist".  From installing low voltage lighting to replacing seat parts to troubleshooting projector issues these are the things that fill a lot of my days - and its not bad at all.

So why Soggy Island?  Well, one day I was browsing the internet when I happened upon a website advertising private islands for sale.  Intrigued, I started browsing and quickly found one in Maine for the low low price of just $40,000.  Obviously, that's an impossibility for me at the moment or any time in the near future but something about it just got me thinking.  Sure, its impossible now but wouldn't it be awesome to have my own island?  Then, of course, the question arose "well, if I had my own island, what would I do there?".  That one was easy - tinker.  I know its everyone's dream to retire early and lead the good life of relaxing and doing as they please but my version is a little different...  I want to retire early to my island and get to work; but have the opportunity to work on projects of my choosing that interest me.  And now I have a goal to work towards.  And in the meantime, I'll keep learning what I can about everything I can so that when I get there I can get to work.

I think that's enough of my rambling for one night.  Stay warm everyone and until next time!

Random Arduino Idea

Well, not everything can be a success...  I had an idea the other evening to improve? Expand? Tinker with? The coin counting jar that I received for Christmas.  My thought was that there had to be a way to hook the existing coin counter through the arduino so it would give me a breakdown of the quantity of each type of coin in the jar, as well as the total dollar value.  And, potentially, eventually, send me a daily email with that information.  And I figures out how to do it too!  As you can see in the 2nd image below, there are various metal contacts on either side of the slit in the circuit board. As the change comes through, it pushes a metal piece along these closing the circuit. And recording what type of money went through depending on which contact is hit.  I figured if I could solder a wire to each of these contacts I could hook it up to the arduino and have it record the same information using the same theory.  Sadly, my soldering skills are still somewhat less than they should be and now the whole thing is broken.  I am going to write the code for the arduino and append it to this post anyway because I want to buy a new coin counting jar and try again.  What's the saying?  If at first you don't succeed...

Table - Day 1

Wahoo!  Since I don't work until the evening today and I got my stuff done around the house I had some free time to get to work on this table!  So, first thing first, as promised below is a slightly better photo of the table top so you can get idea what I'm starting with.  Its pretty scratched up but nothing seems too deep which is part of why when I saw it I knew I had to grab it and put in some work.

Now, next thing next, here is a photo of the underside of the table where you can get a better look at the wood itself.  It looks like there is some sort of light stain on the bottom as it is slightly darker than the natural wood which is only visible under where I took off the support pieces.  Any ideas what kind of wood this is?  I sure don't.

I apologize for my poor photography skills... not my strong point.  As you can see, took all the bottom pieces of and labeled them so everything will be able to go back to right where it started.  Mentioned above, there does seem to be some sort of something even on the bottom because you can see the very distinct white lines where everything came together.  I am going to try and sand it down to this level before I begin re-doing the whole thing but I don't know if I'll be able to as it seems to have absorbed pretty deeply in to the wood.  Fingers crossed.

I began some sanding as well today after a quick trip to the hardware store to get some really rough grit paper as well as a medium grit.  Figure I'll pick up the fine grit paper when I go back to pick the stain.  I do need to find something better than a plastic shelf with some cookbooks on top to be my workspace but it worked fairly well for today.  Below, a half finished and a "done for today" photo.

Its still pretty dark when compared to the white white of the wood but I'm hoping that as I work through the medium and fine grit I'll work through this coloration.  I think the grain is very pretty and I'm super excited to keep working on this.  I work in the evening again tomorrow so hoping to get the rough work done on all the support pieces tomorrow afternoon.  So more to come!

The Next Project...

Howdy!

Changing pace a little bit I wanted to add a photo of my next and entirely different project... hoping to add photos as I work through it so consider this a "before" image.

That's right!  Some crazy person put this great table top out at the dumpster!  Sure, its a little the worse for wear...  It looks like the previous owner burned some of the varnish off and it has some scratches and dings but its a solid piece of wood underneath.  Obviously, I needed to save it.  So for the moment it sits in my entryway getting in the way but this week (hopefully) i'm going to begin the restoration.  I'm planning to take it apart and strip it down first before making a decision as to what type of stain I'll use but as of the moment I'm thinking walnut?  I feel like its too dark as-is so you can't really see the grain which is very pretty.  I have no idea what kind of wood it is underneath, I wish I had the ability to identify different types just by looking at the grain (there are people who can do that right?) but I can't so maybe once it is apart someone out there will be able to help me identify it!  

I've never tried anything like this before - not this scope at least.  Last year I stripped and re-finished our coffee table but for that I only did the top top and it is substantially smaller than this.  Hopefully I'm not getting ahead of myself and my abilities but hey, it was free so if I screw it up no harm no foul right?

So, next week I'll head out to the hardware store to stock up on rough grit sandpaper take it apart and begin the process.  I am still contemplating purchasing an orbital sander which would obviously make this whole project less labor intensive but it also kind of feels like cheating for some reason.  We'll see if I change my tune after a few hours of sanding...  More photos to come!